July Outage Experience &Webflow Conf Predictions

0:00Janne Parri: Hi guys, quick notes about the audio quality before we get to the actual episode. So I made a rookie mistake. I recorded my voice using the headphones, not the actual mic. Sorry about that. But luckily it is just my voice. My guest, Felix, is a pro. His voice is buttery smooth. And he also does most of the talking. So again, sorry for the audio quality and let's get to the show. Okay, Felix, my first returning guest. I'm gonna jump straight to the first question as always. Webflow outage. Outage. Where you

0:38Félix Meens: How rich, yeah.

0:40Janne Parri: Hit by the big outage at the end of July?

0:43Félix Meens: Yeah, actually it was a bit unfortunate because I had two clients that were kind of like onboarding to Webflow. So kind of using Webflow for the very first time. One of them moving from WordPress to Webflow and the other one moving from just coding. Actually, no, wasn't. Yeah, they weren't weeks. Yeah, sorry. ⁓ So that was their first experience was like three days not being able to really do anything like and when the website was loading like it was just you know throwing lots of errors all the time So this was not really a good look to be honest like they were like okay like is this you know like is this how it is on Webflow like what is you know? Probably thinking like did they make a mistake? But luckily you know I managed to ⁓ you know explain that this really rare

1:31Félix Meens: I'm not sure exactly what was happening because we didn't get that much communication, you know, from Webflow, at least at the beginning. You know, afterwards they explained a bit more. Apparently they would, you know, they had some attacks and things like that and they did their best, you know, to fix it as fast as possible. But yeah, during the issues, like there was not that much communication, which I can understand, you know, if everybody's like head down trying to fix the problems, you know, but yeah, I mean I can hear both sides, know, like people criticizing that, you know, they have different teams and they should have had a team, you know, managing that because yeah, like I said, it was not a good look, you know, and I could have lost these two clients, which, you know, cost money. And I'm sure a lot of freelancers and agencies lost money because of that. So yeah, I was affected a little bit, but luckily, like I said, my clients kind of, you know, it's like

2:24Félix Meens: Stuck with me and stuck with Webflow and after that everything went smoothly so it's all good but yeah I understand why some people are pissed I also feel like you know shit happens sometimes yeah and luckily luckily like it doesn't happen all the time you know this is like a really rare event and yeah it sucked for a few days but yeah sometimes shit happens and you know as long as they learn from it and and do the best they can, you know, when it happens and make sure it doesn't happen again, that's all you can ask for. And I'm not going to be one of those that's like, you know, because of this, I'm moving away from Webflow. Like Webflow still is the best tool for me. So, yeah. But how do you feel about it? Did you get hit pretty much like by it or were you on holiday or?

3:13Janne Parri: Not really. Yeah, I was on a vacation and I almost missed the whole thing. I believe there were maybe one client that contacted me that there's something going on, but there were no major updates, no major publications or publishing things that were interrupted. I was just checking it out how the thing progressed. From my vacation desk,

3:42Félix Meens: Hmm.

3:43Janne Parri: So to speak. But I feel like it's a major thing because it's so rare. In a Webflow's case, have not had an outage. Yeah, that's a difficult word for me. Anyway, we have not had anything like that. Before, at least I do not remember anything on that scale. And when it comes to the communication, yeah, I'm with you. What can the company or the employees do than just say that we're working on it. We're like

4:18Félix Meens: Hmm.

4:19Janne Parri: Totally working on it. And at least I feel like that it's better to explain afterwards. Than take time from the actual fix to explain it. So yeah, it's a difficult thing, ⁓ go on.

4:36Félix Meens: I do hear kind of like the opposite side like it would have been nice to maybe know a little bit more so you can explain to your clients also like okay you know it's not like they're getting attacked you know but I don't know if it helps much to know that it's that and that it's not you know them fucking up something but yeah I don't know yeah at least they gave an explanation you know afterwards when everything got back to normal but on that subject, I do feel like there has been a few bugs here and there that I'm not sure. Is it because of a lot of new features lately? Like, you know, when I first used, for example, you know, the language kind of features, localization features.

5:20Janne Parri: Yeah, localization.

5:22Félix Meens: Yeah, like I did encounter a couple of bugs that I had to talk to, you know, the Webflow team about and like, they provided some fixes. Obviously it wasn't anything that I did wrong. It was on their end and they gave me some fix. It was more like work around to how to fix what had happened. And I believe now they fix all these issues, but it does show that there has been a few bugs here and there and maybe same with the new GSAP.

5:53Félix Meens: You know, integration on Webflow, new animations. I haven't been using it much yet because I feel like it's still early and I just kind of want to avoid this box. And I've heard, you know, from the community, like a few people saying that they encountered some issues. So I don't know. I'm just thinking like, you know, I, mean, I know that this was an attack and it's not related, but yeah, I feel like overall, you know, the tool is getting bigger and bigger. Maybe there's more and more teams working on different things and it makes it more complicated. Again, I kind of like, can empathize. But yeah, it's really something that they got to, got to focus on because, you know, this is our, you know, like working tool, like it needs to work all the time. So.

6:35Janne Parri: Definitely, as you said, the tool is getting very complicated and huge. Like you mentioned the localization, we have the G-SAT, of course the main features, then we have analyze and optimize things and everything has to work together if there's one project that uses all of these features.

6:56Félix Meens: Exactly and now they're coming up with the with the how is it called like the Multiplayer, you know kind of yeah, how is it called?

7:04Janne Parri: Multi-edit... You mean like multi- multiple editors at the same time.

7:10Félix Meens: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that must be a huge thing because they've been like, you know, basically it's been a demand for a long time. Everybody's been requesting it. And I'm just thinking that if it took this long, it means that it's a really complex feature and that it's a big change to their architecture or something, you know. So, yeah, I hope it's not going to. Mess anything up, but yeah, they say it's like there's a lot of new things going on and a lot of yeah Potential issues that could arise, but hopefully it's all going well

7:43Janne Parri: Yeah, I have the same feelings, like a bit mixed. Like I'm excited for all the new features, but at the same time, I just wouldn't want to be the developer piecing everything together. So that is hard. But you mentioned...

7:58Félix Meens: And it...

7:59Janne Parri: Yeah, go on.

8:00Félix Meens: No, I was just gonna say and it's also a lot, you know, for us to learn, I guess, like a lot of new features, a of new things. Like, for example, the G-Sub stuff, like I played around a bit with it, but I need to like, you know, go a little bit deeper with it. I'm just curious, like, how do you feel about all these new features? Like, have you been like keeping, you know, up to date with them or like, which one are you excited about?

8:23Janne Parri: Well, I would love to say that have extensively used everything but I haven't so kind of the same way as you the GSAP thing I have done some small things with it with it and yeah, it's not like completely clear to me how I should use it but it's getting there and I I talked with Ethan Suero, who makes a lot of this interaction heavy sites. And he said

8:56Janne Parri: That he's still using the code for GSAP animations because there are bugs and

9:03Félix Meens: Hmm.

9:03Janne Parri: The GSAP interface maybe needs a more fine tuning. And yeah, he said that if you like do a... Animation or interaction that way and you change something on the canvas like some elements it might like break the whole interaction so it's still for him at least it is faster and more reliable to just do it with the code but about other features i'm kind of excited about everything

9:36Janne Parri: I have most experience with the localization thing and I think that is a great tool. It's expensive, it complicates the project of course, but if you are really serious about translating your website, it is the best tool for Webflow obviously. But the things I'd like to play around more are the analyze and optimize tools. I actually have the analyze tool for my own site. Just like with almost every time I have installed some sort of analytics on my site, it just runs. I do not like watch the data because...

10:17Janne Parri: Yeah, it's not that relevant for me. I get the leads

10:19Félix Meens: Hmm.

10:20Janne Parri: And that's the one metric relevant for me. How about you? You watch analytics?

10:28Félix Meens: No, I mean, I just have one analytics from like one of the companies that you don't need, like the cookie consent because I didn't want to add that. So it just gives like very basic info. I just keeping on it. So I know like if something happens, you know, like why it happened. I think like recently I had like a huge spike because because you know my name is like Webflix Studio and probably there was something about some kind of service that was called also Webflix and then suddenly like

11:00Félix Meens: It went like insane I was like, okay, what is going on? And then I saw that okay, it's from, you know, it's probably from that but so it's just good to know like what's going on. But yeah, for me, I mean, as you know, like I have like kind of just a one pager, you know, I recently added like a Finnish, you know, version of that one pager just because you know, working in Finland, Finnish customer. Thought maybe that would be good for them. But yeah, it's not like I'm, you know, trying to rank high on Google or like, you know, creating a lot of SEO content or anything like that. But yeah, regarding optimize and like analyze. Yeah, I mean, these tools seem pretty expensive. So I have a hard time like advising them.

11:44Félix Meens: You know, to my clients. So also it makes it that it's hard for me to see their potential. But now Webflow has this cool new thing, which is this... How is it called by the way? It's like some kind of... Do you know?

11:58Janne Parri: Are you talking about the sandbox thing? Yeah.

12:01Félix Meens: Yeah, sandbox exactly like environment so we can like play around with the new features and I haven't yet, you play it around with it there but that I think that's a really cool idea because yeah in the past it's like, okay i'm familiar with localization because I had a client that needed it, you know, and then i'm learning as i'm going, you know but then other than that, it's like, okay, how do I you know, how can I learn? But now with the sandbox we get to you know play around with these new features without necessarily having the projects, you know, yet. So then you can maybe sell it better after.

12:35Janne Parri: But I'm not sure if that's just for the Webflow partners or is it for everybody?

12:39Félix Meens: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good point. Yeah, yeah, because you and I, know, I forget there's people watching, but yeah, yeah, yeah, you and I are, you know, Webflow certified partner partners. So we have access to the sandbox. If you're not, then yeah, you don't have that. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Sorry.

12:55Janne Parri: Tough luck. But that is a good thing. I know that I have the sandbox, but I haven't checked it out. Of course, the optimize, which is the more expensive one out of those two. That would be cool. And of course, if we think of the clients who would benefit from that, they really need to have a big website and big... Chunk of their revenue coming through the website for it to be a good choice or a good expense to pay.

13:27Félix Meens: Exactly. Like mostly enterprise, you know, clients probably would benefit the most from that and would have the money to pay for that. But yeah, I think mid to small size companies. Don't know if I can justify them spending that much.

13:44Janne Parri: No, really, and maybe there could be cheaper alternatives that do the basic A/B testing stuff. Yeah, it would be nice to play with them. But you mentioned that on your site, you have some sort of analytics tool that does not have to use cookies. But how do you deal with the analytics and cookies with your clients? Do you explain them all the options and then let them choose or what do you do?

14:16Félix Meens: Yeah, I mean, I usually recommend to just get one of the providers that just specialize in that. I feel like it's the safest. Most of them, can just analyze the site, see what cookies you're using. And since all my clients have analytics and HubSpot, and maybe some of them even have extra stuff like LinkedIn and all kind of tracking stuff. I think it's just the easiest. So yeah, there's a few of them, you know, I like that you're always kind of like pop up. So I recommend those as well. And yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. Yeah. Or some of them already have a, know, their own solution. So they just stick with it. Yeah. What about you?

14:58Janne Parri: Yeah, well, basically same with me. Some of my clients already have something on their old site, and it's quite easy to migrate to the new one. I like to use Finsweet. It's now called content Pro, I believe. They just updated it. And the thing with that is that you can customize the banners in the Webflow interface. So that is cool. Yeah, it's a work in progress. So if you want to have a really stable system, maybe you should go with some sort of other solution. But I

15:36Félix Meens: Hmm.

15:37Janne Parri: Like that. Yeah,

15:38Félix Meens: How much is it?

15:39Janne Parri: Actually they updated the pricing. It's quite a good price right now. I have to check it out. But they used to have the subscription. And then it was combined to the component app,

15:55Félix Meens: Hmm.

15:55Janne Parri: But they separated those and now they have a lifetime license.

16:02Félix Meens: I think that's a good mood. Okay. But I think it's good to separate because I have zero needs for their components. But but the GDPR stuff, I mean, the cookie constant stuff that could be useful. But yeah, I don't know if.

16:16Janne Parri: Yeah, so.

16:17Félix Meens: No, go ahead.

16:18Janne Parri: The lifetime license is now $199 and I got some better price because I'm a Pinswood Plus member so it was probably 10 % off. And that's one time payment for the site. Of course you can go with

16:35Félix Meens: Okay, but then

16:37Janne Parri: Monthly or yearly subscriptions also. And there are agency plans to... You've a bunch of sites.

16:45Félix Meens: Yeah, because that's what I was gonna say like most of the time, you know, like I would want to use it for then all the projects. So if that one time payment works for that, I mean, that's a bargain, but if you have to buy it for all the sites, then. I don't know.

17:00Janne Parri: But you can of course let the client pay that.

17:04Félix Meens: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, I guess.

17:05Janne Parri: But yeah, it's way better than before and I'm happy that Finsweet folks listened to the community and changed the pricing. I believe the components, the Instagram feeds and all the rest are better priced as well right now. That's cool. But then...

17:25Félix Meens: Yeah talking about new features also. Sorry, go ahead

17:29Janne Parri: Yeah, still about this exciting topic of analytics and cookies. If I have a small client, just might say that, how about we just set up the Google Search Console? You get some data out of how your site performs in Google. And for small purposes, that is just fine. Get some data and if you just want to see some numbers, that is all you need. And then you do not need to have the cookie constant banners and those. So that's one

18:02Félix Meens: Hmm. Yeah.

18:05Janne Parri: Thing that I sometimes recommend.

18:08Félix Meens: Yeah well for those and you could you could do what i do for my own website then because then they get some analytics and they get no cookie content required but

18:18Janne Parri: But are those paid like those non-cookie? Yeah.

18:23Félix Meens: Yeah, you pay for that, but at least you don't need to pay for the cookie concept. And it doesn't bother

18:26Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, of course.

18:27Félix Meens: The visitors. You get, I mean, you get, know, your basic Google analytics data basically without having to add the cookie concept, but

18:36Janne Parri: Yeah, there's a bit like the same problem with the cookie consent thing that because Finsweet had the back in the day had kind of this cookie consent thing that was free and I used that and I got used to it being free and now it's paid and of course it's a complicated system and people should pay for it but when in the past you got it for free it's hard to now jump the... To the paid things, so.

19:05Félix Meens: Of course. Yeah. But like I said, you know, most of my clients, they need, you know, they have HubSpot and this and that they have many different tracking and analytics. So they always need something robust. So that's why I go with this kind of solution. It's just like a monthly, you know, payment anyway. So

19:25Janne Parri: With the rest of the subscriptions. Too many of those. But you were about to ask maybe about new features or something.

19:29Félix Meens: Yeah. No, yeah, I was just, ⁓ yeah, because were talking about new features before I just realized also that Webflow Conf is, you know, around the corner, like in a couple of weeks. Yeah, I haven't thought about it much, but like, cause they've been releasing so many new features now, but they [WEBFLOW] usually, ⁓ you know, have the biggest announcements. During Webflow Conf, so I'm really curious to see what those ⁓ are going to be and is it going to be again like something that they announced now but it's coming in two years? ⁓ I feel

20:01Félix Meens: Like the past couple years been a bit like that. Or is it something that's, yeah.

20:03Janne Parri: Honestly, that's good that you brought that up because I haven't thought of anything like aside these new features, anything like new. I'm just thinking that if the newest features that are already out and the multi-editing thingy, those can be just like... Finalized and fine-tuned and get them working well. That's enough for me. But now that you mentioned, I kind of got excited. Could there be something that we're missing or at least I'm not thinking of? Do you have any

20:41Janne Parri: Predictions?

20:42Félix Meens: I mean, no prediction. Mean, to be honest, like this, some of these features, yeah, like you said, you know, like GSAP integration and the multi ⁓ editor thing. I feel like these are Webflow Conf worthy announcements. So I don't know if they're going to talk about it again, because the multi, you know, editor thing ⁓ is still in beta. So maybe that's going to be one of the big features to announce, but yeah, like while you were saying that, you know, like I'm like pretty happy with the state of workflow right now. I mean, there's always the same thing, which I think is like the CMS, some of the limitations. If they [WEBFLOW] can fix the multi-editing, maybe they can also fix the CMS. They did improve it ⁓ recently, but there's still some limitation, you know, towards like how many kind of like sub collections, know, nested collections you can have

21:36Félix Meens: And like all this kind of stuff. So they already started to improve it. So maybe there is some more improvements coming to the CMS. I think that would be cool. Also, I think they're going to be removing the whole editor thing, know, the legacy editor, which is like, I think the new way is a lot better, but also it's cost more for the clients because they need to have the seats, you know, for those like editors. So maybe they'll talk a bit about that too, like some improvements to that and removing the old one. Yeah.

22:08Janne Parri: Hopefully, it is not going to be just a list of things we're going to deprecate and cut off. That would be quite dull web blogging. But last year, they made a big deal about this, was it like a web experience platform concerning the analyze and optimize things. I wonder if there's something new to... To that part maybe.

22:37Félix Meens: Maybe e-commerce.

22:38Janne Parri: I gotta say, I have been planning to do a video about how the e-commerce is like a wasted opportunity for Webflow. Atleast back here where we are at. So I feel that with a couple of small updates, it could be a viable thing for many, more businesses.

23:03Félix Meens: Yeah, I had a few leads this year, which I had to like turn down because I basically told them like for what you need is better you go with Shopify, you know, and share anyway, like it wouldn't really be my niche to do like a lot of e-commerce stuff. Since I do mostly, you know, more like tech companies, SaaS, you know, startups and things like that. But I mean, if I had. You know the tools on the Webflow. I might have been more inclined to just be like, okay. Yeah, you know, it's not like exactly my niche, but like let's do it. You know, it's still Webflow. I'm still, you know, capable of doing this on Webflow. So, but now because I was like, nah, you know, like this is not the best for Webflow. Better you go with, you know, Shopify and then yeah, just, I just let them go basically.

23:50Janne Parri: Yeah, ⁓ Webflow doesn't have to like rival Shopify. It's a good platform for big, e-commerce brands. But just update few features like the payment providers so that people who want to have a third party payment provider could add that. And then they could have like a small shop with a couple of items, not even too many like product variants or anything like that. That's like my my biggest gripe with the e-commerce that they just have the Stripe and PayPal and that might be fine

24:25Félix Meens: Mmm.

24:26Janne Parri: Back there in the States. For example,

24:28Félix Meens: Hmm.

24:29Janne Parri: Us here in Finland, there are a couple of payments options that those do not provide that are quite like mandatory here in Finland. So that's yeah.

24:39Félix Meens: Yeah, that's true. That's yeah, they could make a few steps forward and have already something more viable. Yeah.

24:49Janne Parri: But do you think that they have like the motivation for that or are they just going to do a huge game move and deprecate the whole e-commerce thing?

25:02Félix Meens: I had no idea. Mean, I mean, only the people working at workflow, I think, can answer that question. I have no idea. But yeah, like you said, with the whole like web experience thing, you know, could go that way, you know, because it could fit that, we're trying to have this whole thing. Some people need to also sell things and buy things, or it could go completely different way. Like, you know, they've been doing a lot of these more app, you know, kind of driven stuff. Where you can link Webflow with your code and react stuff. So

25:33Félix Meens: Maybe there will be more stuff towards that too. I'm not sure. We'll have to see.

25:37Janne Parri: There has been a couple, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but a couple past weblogs, there have been those kinds of updates to like DevLink and now there's Weblog Cloud and yeah, all the developers. But I'm still saying, I talking about the e-commerce. It's a huge feature like when they deprecated the... Well, announced that the old editor will be deprecated and logic and membership features will be gone. I think that those were not as big of features than e-commerce.

26:22Janne Parri: There's probably quite a few sites that use Webflow e-commerce and it would be a huge thing to just cut it out.

26:31Félix Meens: For sure, for sure. Yeah, but maybe they will improve it, who knows.

26:33Janne Parri: Yeah, who knows. But I'm glad if we get some small upgrades to the CMS. That has been the community favorite for a long time too, besides the multi-editor thing.

26:51Félix Meens: Yeah. I mean, every project, you know, I have to use the CMS heavily. So if they can make, you know, even small improvements to the workflow, to the limitations, to like anything, it would be very welcome.

27:05Janne Parri: And I have been a bit envious when I see, I believe Framer has, and Wix Studio has this CMS editing UI that has like this spreadsheet layout. So you have all your items on the lines and you can just edit them from there. That would be cool. But I'm not, well, maybe not that priority, but anyway.

27:22Félix Meens: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, I mean, it should be, you know, like I said, I mean, every project. You know that I do. Yeah, there's a lot of like CMS editing and you know migrating also, you know from WordPress like importing like and yeah, like the work is very tedious, you know, it's like opening the thing and like, you know, sure you sometimes you can import the CSV but it's like yeah why don't you give me a yeah, like a better experience straight on Webflow? Yeah, like you said where I could like maybe edit, you know the lines like directly and not just always like having to close go back reopen the next

28:03Félix Meens: Yeah, but I mean, that is not even the biggest thing. I think there's a lot of other stuff they could improve.

28:09Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. But one thing that is quite clear to me that Webflow has evolved a lot and it is like more serious platform in a sense that just like the business cases who Webflow is good for, they are kind of like filtering out the smallest like companies and maybe like the designers, like the visual designers that used to be their focus that, okay, if you can design something, you can build it.

28:43Janne Parri: And now it's more towards, well, maybe not just enterprise clients, but like more serious businesses, mid-size businesses and so on who have like the budget to spend on the CMS and localization plans and everything else. Do you agree with me?

29:02Félix Meens: Yeah, I mean, I don't think they would really say it like I think they're trying to be like catering for more people, right? So small business still, you medium sized businesses, but also like enterprise. But I mean, yeah, there's this, you know, thing that you keep hearing the community, you know, that, they're just catering for enterprise and us, you know, smaller companies or freelancers like we're being forgotten. I don't know if that's 100 % true. There's definitely some things that, know, may feel a bit that way. But I do understand, or I do see the shift though, like from, like you said, like before it was like designers, you know, using the tool to now, like, you know, maybe you need more like a developer kind of mindset to build. That I agree. I still think, you know, designer can, designers can learn Webflow, you know, I mean, I was primarily, you

29:57Janne Parri: Yeah, total,

29:58Félix Meens: Know, a designer before. But they do need to understand that, it's, you know, like a kind of a visual coding tool. It's not a design tool. So, yeah.

30:11Janne Parri: Yeah, but just think if you had to start learning Webflow from the start right now, how much more there would be compared to when we just got our hands into it. So yeah, it's way more complicated. And what I was trying to say that maybe the sweet spot for the end user, like the client has shifted as you said that

30:39Félix Meens: You

30:39Janne Parri: The legacy editor, for example, it was good. The new one is better, but more expensive, which means that you have to actually get some revenue out of the

30:49Félix Meens: That's true.

30:50Janne Parri: Website. Yeah, that has been on my mind. And I think that many people agree. I talked about this with Corey Moen for example. And yeah, he said that he has seen the ship too. Of course. There will always be freelancers who just are able to do those things, like small, non-dedicated firms, I think that they will have better options.

31:21Félix Meens: That's true. Yeah. Like if you're really small company, yeah, like all these new features, like the components, the editing, you know, like, yeah, like you said, it's maybe more geared towards like people or like companies that have like a marketing team. I mean, this is kind of what they're promoting also, you know, like, you know, the marketing team can now edit the website. They don't need to ask for a dev all the time to do small tweaks. So yeah, I think, yeah, like this is kind of like their sweet spots, like companies that have a team, compared to, like really small businesses, but then maybe, yeah, maybe they were anyway, like we're kind of losing these, potential clients already, you know, to things like Squarespace and Wix and all that. And maybe they're like, hey, let's double down on medium to large. Maybe, I don't know, not working at Webflow. So

32:11Félix Meens: Just speculating here, but.

32:14Janne Parri: But I'm kind of, I'm fine with this progression because my, I, at least I am like, I feel that I'm growing with Webflow and my clients are bigger than when I started, which is of course a good thing for me. And yeah, the thing is that I just wonder if I, if now was the time when I started my business, I would probably jump. It's Framer or something like that, more newer platform. And I would grow with that platform, hopefully the same way how I grew with Webflow. But yeah, things are changing. Of course, change is

32:57Janne Parri: Inevitable and we cannot live without it or even if we want it. OK. But you mentioned marketers and marketers are always excited about AI. So I, a little bird told me that you have been playing around with AI more. So what have you done and what have you found?

33:22Félix Meens: Yeah. Well, okay. So the first thing is like kind of related to coding. Know, like I said, you know, my background is mostly as a designer. I did already dabbled, you know, with like CSS, you know, back in the days, a little bit of React. But, you know, from a designer's like point of view or like perspective. So, yeah, it's not like I was writing like, you know, lots of JavaScript from scratch or anything like that, but when I started using Webflow, I tried to do basically everything with Webflow and then little by little, you know, you have some small limitations. So maybe you're adding a bit of CSS here, CSS there, like some properties you didn't have, you know, now they added the custom property, which is great, but before you didn't have that. So you had to do a bit of that. And then maybe you have some new, you know, you expand on your skillset and you want to, you know, also improve your website. So you start to add a bit more code for like.

34:17Félix Meens: You know, maybe like drop downs or, you know, FAQ like accordion. You want to like open close them with like, you know, bit of a jQuery or something. So yeah, I think like you were saying, like you're progressing, you know, with the client, but like, this is kind of the same, but progressing, you know, yeah, with your skillset and like the more you feel confident, the more, you know, the builds are getting more complex. So the more code I'm starting to add and yeah, now, you know, we, with AI, like you have. A lot more kind of possibilities to add code without necessarily like knowing having to know how to code from scratch. So I've been like doing that a lot more, you know, just asking ChatGPT, you know, for some help here and there and like also like building sliders and you know, some custom tabs and things like that. So now I feel like I'm a lot less like in limited, you know,

35:13Félix Meens: Compared to before, it's like, the design is like, that's not really how you would do tabs on Webflow. Like, what is that weird tab stuff? But now I'm like, oh,

35:21Janne Parri: You

35:21Félix Meens: Okay, like, cool challenge. Let me build my own, like, custom tabs, not even using the tabs from Webflow, just having divs and, like, having some code to do the functionality. But the work, how do you say, like, the process of, like, getting code from AI, pasting it on Webflow and all that has been a bit of a pain. And also, ChatGPT is not always the best compared to what I'm about to talk about. So my new workflow now is to use cursor, which is specifically made to write code with AI. The AI can see what code you have there.

36:04Félix Meens: Which is really cool and it cannot really see your Webflow project so you still have to give it a good prompt with like what classes you have or what not but yeah I've been using that and I've been using I know you could potentially have the whole code on a CDN and hook this on Webflow but I haven't done that I've taken a bit of a shortcut maybe I'll do that soon but for now I'm just using like a plugin like on your browser and basically it's kind of like taking from your own server the code and then just like injecting it to the website so if i publish the site and i

36:42Félix Meens: Go to the staging and then it injects the javascript and then if i change the code in cursor then it just you know i just need to refresh and i see yeah

36:51Janne Parri: That's cool.

36:53Félix Meens: Yeah, so I've been doing that. It's been a lot of fun. Like the latest project I've had, I've used that a lot. And it was just this new, yeah, this new approach, which made like building the site a lot more fun. And you can really pay attention to all like, you know, all the details and small animations here and there. And then at the end, I just copy paste the code from cursor to the relevant pages or components or site setting, depending on, yeah, so that's one thing I've been playing around more with AI and coding. But I would love to hear how is your experience with coding inside Webflow? Have you played around with that too?

37:32Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, so I have done a lot of ChatGPT talking or conversations as well. And I have installed the cursor app on my computer, but I haven't really used that yet. But I know the possibilities. And now that you mentioned the extension, that could be very, very helpful for the workflow because you do not have to copy paste. What is the extension called? I believe it's like a Chrome extension.

38:05Félix Meens: Let me, let me check. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's called temper monkey. So yeah, basically you just tell it like, what's your server, you know, like your local host, server, and then it just like injects the code. Also give it the URL of your website. So during the build of the website, will be like your staging, you know, link from Webflow and then yeah. Then just does the rest, it's super easy to set up and cursor is also very easy to use, it's been fun so yeah

38:38Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot of people on the internet like using Claude through cursor and ⁓ then using the MCPs with cursor 2 and I wonder if the MCP could be a solution for connecting Webflow to the cursor. So maybe even you could do like actual edits. I'm not sure. I haven't done any of that work, but I wonder.

39:06Félix Meens: Hmm. Yeah. I'm not sure either. Yeah. I have never used the MCP stuff yet, from Webflow, but, yeah, I believe it's like really useful. Like if you want to, you know, edit like CMS stuff, with that, because were just

39:21Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. See you, miss.

39:23Félix Meens: Talking about like how sometimes it's like annoying to click on things and like, so maybe if you can do that through AI, that could be, that could be good. And I think you can, I just haven't yet. It's been a lot to learn so I can't do everything but yeah.

39:36Janne Parri: Yeah, I know. But that is my understanding too, that the Webflow MCP is for now mainly for the CMS editing. But hopefully, because there is a thing called designer API, hopefully that could grow. Actually, could that be a thing for all the AI for the new announcements?

40:05Félix Meens: Could be, yeah, for sure there will be some new AI features, so let's see. But then with the AI stuff, so the other thing I've been getting into as well. It's like, you know, it's like just before I get into it's like there's so many, you know, new fun stuff like going on. Like it's hard to check everything. But for me, I'm like, you know, I don't know if it's my ADHD, but like I need something new and exciting. And then I'll just like geek out, you know, about it. And that was like the same for me. Like when I started to use cursor and I was like, why this is so much fun, you know, I just like, you know, suddenly like it just made the bill like a lot more fun. So

40:44Félix Meens: The new thing I'm like playing around with is, you know, I keep hearing about like those agents and those like workflows and like how you can automate. It's like, you know, if you have a small business, like, why do you know, do all this thing manually? Like just have, you know, agents or AI do everything for you. So yeah, I was very skeptical about this. So now I'm like starting to play around a bit with that and like try to build. Some workflows and see what I can do. For now, I'm literally like yesterday's when I was playing around with that. But it was the same as when I played with cursor. I spent the whole day from

41:23Félix Meens: Basically when I started at 7.30 to 7 PM, I was playing around with this and I managed to connect basically Slack with like AI and then an Excel sheet which has my to-do list and so I can tell that was like the first basic thing, you know I can tell on slack like ads or what do I have to do? Like what's on my list today? And then it's just been you have this task and this task and then I can say like delete this one or mark this one has to do or I have to do this one you know, I have to go to hairdresser tomorrow at 10 p.m. Like and then 10 a.m. Sorry

42:04Félix Meens: And then it like puts it, automatically. So I don't need to do anything. It's kind of like AI like doing this. And then now I'm like also updating all this so that the assistant can like, you know, it reads my email, it checks my calendar, events and then my to-dos there. And then it gives me a report every morning of like, what's going on? Like, what is the priority? So I don't know how useful it is yet because. Like, you know, I still need to tweak some things and like for now it's just yeah kind of like telling me things I kind of know already because it's not like I'm missing, you know, I just not like I have all these unread emails and events I don't know about but it's been still cool to like play around with this and see kind of like the Potential and I'm now starting to think like there is some automation actually that could help with the business you know like

42:55Félix Meens: Creating like a so w's like statement of work, which are you know almost all the time like pretty similar Creating like a new lead template or notion for example, I'm using notion for a lot of that So all these small things I'm like, okay now it's kind of possible I don't know if it's gonna save me that much time to be honest compared to like doing it manually, you know, creating a new lead on notion doesn't take me that long. But if it can be automatic, you know, and I'm starting to see like the benefits of like why people, you know, have been like hyping this up. So it's been, yeah,

43:33Félix Meens: Really fun to play around that.

43:35Janne Parri: Do you have some sort of tool like Zapier or NA8 or something like that? The NA... Yeah. Have... n8n.

43:42Félix Meens: Yeah, that one that one and eight and yeah and eight and I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce that name, but

43:53Janne Parri: I have used Zapier now. I'm on make.com. And I have seen a bunch of videos about n8n. And I'm kind of... Feeling a little FOMO because of the AI stuff. But I have done quite cool automations without actual AI with just the make.com. Things

44:17Félix Meens: Mmm.

44:17Janne Parri: You mentioned, kind of the same kind of things. Like whenever I have a forum submit, someone contacts me throughout my website. It will draft an email based on a template for me. Actually, I have like integrated that with ChatGPT. So it will like give the email and response and the ChatGPT will write the response and make.com will put that into draft email

44:46Félix Meens: Hmm.

44:46Janne Parri: For me and those sort of stuff. It is cool, but I would love to see like agent Agent Dab, in your example, could say that stop painting those Warhammer degrees. Do some work for them.

45:02Félix Meens: Get to work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if we're there yet. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of like what I need. Like, you know, that's that was the idea behind the assistant is like somebody I can, you know, something I can ask, you know, what's my priority for the day? Like, what's what should I focus on today? And like, can just check everything, you know, my project management emails and just kind of like, tell me what like having a boss kind of like, you know, as a as an AI that tells me what to focus on and then of course you know make your own decision we're not like you know machines ourselves but just to know a bit yeah like what's going on it's without me having to have like kind of that mental you know burden of like having to remember everything and like I need to answer that email and do this and that so that was the idea

45:50Félix Meens: But I don't know if it's yet yeah there yet

45:52Janne Parri: And sometimes it's such a simple thing that you do not want to open your email or to-do list because you know that there's a bunch of stuff and you just want to know if there is something someone has answered your email or what is the next single item on your to-do list. And it would be so nice to just ask and give that or get that one answer. Now and behold, shebang.

46:18Félix Meens: Exactly. Yeah. And the things you mentioned, you know, like with Zapier, like I never really saw the, I don't know, the need to do that because I feel like it didn't really add much value. It's like, okay, I can get a Slack message. Maybe when I get a new lead or, know, like I didn't see anything that's really like impressed me in like, yeah, that's going to save me a lot of time, you know, but now I feel like with, you know, with the LLMs being able to kind of understand, know, yeah, like you can, it's not as just like the, you know, one answer kind of thing. You can get a bit more from it. I'm, you know, I'm guessing, you know, like I said, like

46:57Félix Meens: Asking like, create a few tasks, remove the ones that are done, like blah, you know, like kind of give more instructions and for it to be able to kind of like understand what you, what you want and give you some insights as well. Not just like a robot being like running you know this here is the you know i don't know if what i'm trying to say makes sense but yeah

47:20Janne Parri: Without AI, it's so template-based and the workflows are very rigid. And with AI, you can get more custom answers. And you can, of course, interact with it in a different way.

47:37Félix Meens: Exactly I think for example like if I take your example of like you're getting a lead and you can answer an automated message like I mean that was possible before right you could have you know just a template answer and it's just but okay there's no customization the client just gets you know yeah, the same message everybody else gets like I'll get back to you soon. Thank you for your interest or whatever then the next step is like, okay, maybe chat gpt gets the context, know, it knows about your business can get a better answer but then for me like the next step even would be that he would ask me like maybe on slack like because I mean i'm talking about Slack all the time because this is what I

48:16Félix Meens: Use more mostly, you know for work So I like that everything would be on the same app but he could ask me like hey, you just got a you know, newly like somebody filled your form they want this these services, this is the budget, blah. You know, what should I answer? And you could just say like, you know, well, this is not really, you know, my niche or the budget is too low. Like answer something or like, yeah, I'm really interested. Book an appointment, you know, check my calendar. And then it will like, okay, yeah, let me check your calendar. This is a good time. Can I answer this? And just be like, yeah, sure. Send. And then it would just like send everything with the link to the calendar and like, you know, like kind of have it.

48:56Janne Parri: That would be awesome,

48:57Félix Meens: Be a bit smaller and I feel like this is where like, you know, we're getting there.

49:02Janne Parri: We're close, but there's little bit of trust that we would still need. Like the trust that it will write the email the way you would write it and not make mistakes or anything like that. I'm

49:19Félix Meens: Yeah, that's the...

49:20Janne Parri: Kind of, well, I wouldn't say close to that, but my automation works so that... The ChatGPT gets the context. It knows what are my services, what are my minimum fees and when is my next possible starting dates for a project. And based on that, it will write a response. But it will still create just a draft email because I do not trust it to send it out. So it will... Yeah.

49:52Janne Parri: It will save me some time, but maybe someday we will be at that stage where we can just trust our AI companions and let them do the work.

50:02Félix Meens: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the trusting. Yeah. I think you have a, yeah, you have a good point. I'm, at the same page. And I've also like double, like, if you want to talk a bit about like, you know, business stuff now, like, you know, like, since I started, like as a, as a freelancer, and then I like to collaborate with like other freelancers, you know, for certain things. And then I was like, Oh, you know, what's the next step? Like I should like grow, you know, run like a proper studio and, know, like everybody's been telling, you know, basically everywhere I look, it's like, Oh, you know, like if you, if you, if your business doesn't work without you, like you don't have a business, you know, you just have a job. And I was like, okay, you know, maybe this is what I need to do. Like, you know, just focus on sales and this and that. And then.

50:55Félix Meens: You know, delegate more and I've been doubling with that but I'm thinking about that because you talked about the trust and like I also, you know, tested like having an assistant but I feel like it didn't really save me that much time because like unless you 100 % trust your assistant like maybe, you know, she's like fully part of the business. You know, or like, you know, some people like, I see like, they're like a couple, you know, like your partner is doing the other side of the, like, that's fine. But like, if you have somebody like part-time, like, I don't trust a hundred percent. And I have to double check all the time, you know, everything as well. Like, okay, is this the, like, would I answer the email like this, you know, and, know, would I answer the client like that? Is the proposal how I would also, you know, so it's like, well, I might as well do it myself then, you know, so.

51:42Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. A lot of times the things you would like to outsource to an assistant are those like communication stuff that you mentioned like emails and maybe some light content creation. But those things are like very, very like personal. So a lot of marketing folks say that never outsource those to the intern. They are important stuff and you should do them by yourself. But yeah.

52:10Félix Meens: Yeah, yeah, that's super good point because she was like, yeah I can you know can help with the marketing and stuff and like even if I write the idea then I see the post I was like no like this is not at all like how I would write it you know, like this is just a lot of nuance and maybe they don't realize like how important those small nuance, know are but for me like, know, I'm like opinionated like I don't want to just put anything out there so So yeah, I mean, it was still a good experiment. And that's also what now is like, maybe also get me more interested into, you know, automations and AI and stuff, because I do feel like, okay, there's some things I'm spending a lot of time on that. Maybe I don't need to be doing it, but yeah, I definitely, I'm happy. I realized, you know, like just doing the work and not just being a CEO, you know, like I don't want to just do sales.

53:05Félix Meens: Marketing, managing people, you know, telling people what to do. Like, so I'm kind of like, yeah, it was good, you know, to experiment a bit with this and realize like what I like doing, but I'm kind of like doubling down on just, yeah, like just being kind of like, you know, my sweet spot is like being a freelancer that can collaborate with others when I need, you know, maybe some Expertise is needed, know some special design skills or like 3d or illustrations or whatever and you know happy to collaborate with others because I don't want to be limited by just my skill set but I still want to be part of the project. I want to do the work. I don't want that yeah, just be managing people because you have to let go of a lot of things and you have to do a completely different job with different skill set

53:59Félix Meens: And I actually enjoy, you know, doing the work. So yeah, that's kind of like, yeah. So basically the

54:09Janne Parri: You

54:09Félix Meens: Evolution of my business is like, it's not really evolving. I feel like I have the sweet spot and maybe that's okay. And I think maybe you're a bit in the, in a similar.

54:19Janne Parri: Definitely. I struggle with that and yeah, there's of course a lot of ways one can evolve. Your business does not have to grow in the means of actual employees. You can just try to get more bigger projects and work with cool people and so on. But I totally feel the... Pressure to build an agency or build something bigger than

54:49Félix Meens: Hmm.

54:50Janne Parri: Just a one person thing. But I'm with you. You do not have to do that because as you said, the work is totally different. And sometimes I feel that people are in the hurry to somehow like outsource everything and make themselves obsolete. Which usually means that they just want to build a money machine. Yeah, of course, that's good and well if you want to do that, but that might be an indicator that you do not like the actual work that you started. Like

55:27Janne Parri: If you're in the web design business just to like make money. Well, this is a way to make money, but... Maybe you could try other stuff too.

55:35Félix Meens: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, but like, you're not nothing wrong with that. You know, like if you, if you just want to build a business and you're like, you know, I'm going to pick web design and that's fine. Then, you know, like from the beginning, maybe you outsource the design and the development and you're more like the, face of the company, the CEO and like, that's fine. You know, but for me, that's not where I came from. You know, I kind of, you know, enjoyed. Design and you know development and then I'm trying to get myself away from this and then it's like okay that's not you know that I'm not enjoying this

56:13Félix Meens: So

56:14Janne Parri: And the other thing that I see that people are trying to like, well, make some sort of passive income and trying to like get out of client's work, basically.

56:25Félix Meens: That's a big one. Yeah.

56:27Janne Parri: But I just realized when I talked with Ethan that I mentioned before that maybe the client's work is actually quite good, quite good work because the money comes like quickly. You do not have to wait for wait for that. And if you build some sort of app or whatever digital products, you might have to take quite big risks. With client work, especially the website projects that we make, are not ongoing. So it has a start and the end. If you have a bad client, the project will end at some point. And you can, of course, try to filter the bad clients out. So it might not be as bad as

57:15Janne Parri: People make it seem. Especially if you have good clients, it's maybe the best work.

57:22Félix Meens: Yeah, I think that's yeah, like if you can put yourself in the position where you know, you're earning what you know comfortably and you can pick what projects to work on that you can pick the ones that yeah, you enjoy doing but it's true that there is this kind of tendency of like, okay. Like if somebody's becoming you know like you like i've seen a few freelancers becoming like really popular and then using that popularity to just like get out of client work. You know, like doing a course or something like that. Which is interesting. I feel like sometimes it's maybe just like kind of, ⁓ you know, like, there's like money on the table. So you gotta, you gotta take it, you know, like you have this audience or might as well do a course. And sometimes, you know, maybe it's more like they really want to get out of, you know, the client work and they love teaching and they do more courses and stuff.

58:19Félix Meens: I do enjoy teaching I know you also enjoy teaching so yeah I don't have yet like strong opinion about this of course I don't like people that seem to be just like trying to grab money you know from people you know like just a quick buck but yeah for now I'm happy doing the client work I don't see myself like doing like you know products or like templates even you know some people they just do templates because they don't have to deal with clients with revisions, with feedback, know, or courses.

58:47Janne Parri: Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too. I like the client work. Of course, if I had like the opportunity to jump full time to a YouTuber or a teacher or something else, I might take that offer. But for now, I feel that client work is just good. And yeah, of course, there's one caveat. You kind of have to be a good communicator. Communicator and I

59:19Janne Parri: Understand that if you feel that all your clients are somehow tough there might be a couple of reasons. One is that you are billing too little and the other one might be that you yourself are not that good of a communicator.

59:37Félix Meens: Hmm.

59:38Janne Parri: Do you feel the same?

59:40Félix Meens: Yeah, I mean, I think once you get to that point, like I said before, where you can kind of pick, you know, your clients and your project, I think everything gets easier because then you can pick the projects where you feel, you know, that the, can tell when the client is going to be, you know, easy going and everything is going to go smoothly. Usually, of course, sometimes you think it's going to go smoothly and it doesn't, but if you can be in the position where you're like, well, actually, you know, you don't really need the money. Like you're fine. You have. Potentially another project then you can stop when you know before it's too late So yeah, yeah exactly.

1:00:12Janne Parri: Yeah, the walk away power. Yeah, that's cool. There was something else while we're at this more like broad topic. Yeah, I was thinking kind of maybe loosely related to this is the pace of like learning or doing projects because at some point last week a thought struck to me that I should be like... Learning more stuff and practicing more, should have some sort of like design workout routine. And

1:00:47Félix Meens: Hmm.

1:00:47Janne Parri: Then the second thought was that, okay, but what about the client's work? The client work always comes first. And where do I find the time? I tried to do the content that we're doing right now. And then I thought that there is probably some sort of balance. Of how much you do and how you are like able to learn. Let's say if you work in a busy agency you might be doing a lot which is usually good for learning but if it's too much like you are just a machine and you like copy paste everything and you will not be

1:01:24Félix Meens: Hmm.

1:01:25Janne Parri: Doing anything new hence you will not be learning and I was thinking what would be the ideal ideal pace for projects, let's say website projects that you could still learn while you are doing. Thoughts on that?

1:01:40Félix Meens: ⁓ I don't know like ⁓ I've tried you know forever to give myself some you know schedule and like be like, okay, gotta now, you know, there's always these new things I gotta learn you know, like you gotta learn Spline You know like set aside some time to do this or you gotta learn this but at the end I don't know if it's my ADHD or what but like I am always I can't force myself for these things. I always have to follow my interest and then I will kind of like, you know, like I said, like yesterday, I was the whole day from morning to evening, basically, on like, you know, N8N and just, you know, building, you know, workflows and automations. So ⁓ I'm kind of like embracing that this is how I am. And then if I, if there's a peer

1:02:29Félix Meens: Period of time where I don't have anything, you know, I'm just doing the client work and everything is fine. And then suddenly something picks my interest and I'm just going all in on that. Then this is what I do. So this is what happened with the cursor thing, you know, it came with the project, but then this automation thing came kind of like out of nowhere. Yeah, I thought about this also because you know you were talking about you know becoming like you know potentially like full-time YouTube or something like YouTube was something I also came at some point I was I am this cool and let's do like a YouTube channel and then I made a couple videos and now it's kind of like I lost a bit the interest in a holiday came and I can only have like one or two things that I'm like really kind of obsessed about

1:03:12Félix Meens: That's thing I obsess about things or then I don't care like there's no like in between so it's really difficult for me to have things like YouTube where you gotta do a little bit every week. I have really trouble doing that and I kind of accepted that this is not my personality. This is not how I am and maybe I'm not gonna do YouTube for like two or three months and maybe all of sudden I'm gonna make videos every week for a couple of months. And that's just, know it's not great, but like I'm not doing YouTube to get clients, you know, like when I really needed to like for clients, like then I would obviously, you know, I do the work and I do LinkedIn posts and things like that. But yeah, if I don't really have to, then I'm just leaning onto my personality, which is kind of like, you know, obsessing or not caring at all. And sometimes there's period where I don't do anything related to.

1:04:06Félix Meens: To Webflow and like ⁓ this year I've been obsessing you know about painting little miniatures and when I was like learning all that I was watching all the YouTube videos and buying all the ⁓ all the paints and ⁓ like tools and like I didn't care about Webflow I was doing my job you know like kind of a nine to five and then after that I was doing my own thing I wasn't learning you know any new you know, Webflow related or like design related thing. And sometimes that's fine. I think you need, you need that kind of like, otherwise you're just going to burn out. Feel like at least for me. So yeah.

1:04:42Janne Parri: I believe that applies to everyone. So you have to have some sort of outlet or something else to do. Example, I went to a woodworking class yesterday. And that is quite far away from this digital world where we live in. So that was nice. But about the Warhammer, I know that you have started painting those. So I got to ask, how did you how did you jump into it? Where did you find it?

1:05:13Félix Meens: Actually like when I was when I was a kid my brother got a few Warhammer and like he had some space marines and he got some orcs for me so we could play together you know, I'm like five years younger than him So it's not like I was gonna be very challenging in the in the strategy side of things compared to him, but you know, it was nice for him to have somebody to play with him I guess so and I just painted those and yeah, it was a lot of fun. Of course, I wasn't very good at that time. But then more recently, I don't know, was just talking with a friend, and he, I don't know, he was like, we talked a bit about that, like what we used to do as a kid, you know, and he was like, hey, should totally try again, you know, and I was like, hmm, yeah, maybe

1:05:58Félix Meens: Then I just, I just did, you know, earlier this year, like at the beginning of the year. Just yeah, it started again. And then you know like I said when I start something then I start to obsess about it and like wanting to learn everything and watching the videos and you know buying all the cool stuff so so yeah, and so now I've been I've been at first just like painting just for the sake of painting you know doing something with your hand and having a bit of creativity outside of the screen but now I'm trying to pick up the playing also

1:06:29Félix Meens: Trying a game called like Kill Team which is it's not like those huge armies that you sometimes have you know with Warhammer 40k it's more like a small squad and you play like you know turn by turn like one figure in by one figure in which makes it a bit more interactive than like full army like then for half an hour you get the opponent like you know moving the army it's like for me that's too boring you know it's like I'm gonna fall asleep so So yeah, that's kind of like how I got into it and now I'm like, you

1:07:00Félix Meens: Know, now that I'm painting the figure in, I'm like might as well play with them as well. So it's not just sitting on the on the shelf, you know, looking pretty. But yeah, I've you like, do you know anything about Warhammer or Tabletop?

1:07:12Janne Parri: Not really I have I see some videos on YouTube like shorts and stuff. They are they are fascinating maybe like the painting ones and I find myself like what could I call it like pseudo? Hobbies like do being interested about nerdy stuff. Let's say Warhammer or

1:07:31Félix Meens: Mmm yeah

1:07:33Janne Parri: Pokemon cards but not actually like doing the hobby. Yeah.

1:07:38Félix Meens: Doing it. Yeah, I can't really get that. Yeah, there was a time when I was watching like YouTube videos about I don't know what's the name, but it's like aquarium kind of you know landscaping kind of thing, you know where they like they build their own like aquarium or like they build them you know, they put the plants the rocks and they usually it's very aesthetically pleasing I loved watching this like for a couple months. I was just watching this every day like people doing the best aquariums and like, you know, but I wouldn't like I'm not interested in having an aquarium myself. So, you know, so

1:08:14Félix Meens: I think it's maybe a little bit similar where you can kind of like enjoy like watching it or seeing it. Like you.

1:08:20Janne Parri: But I feel that there comes a point of life, an adult life where you are like, okay, now I do not care what other people do and I can nerd out on whatever Pokemon or what's the new trend with the little things, Labooboos. I'm not sure if that's... Trendy or nerdy but anyway

1:08:46Félix Meens: I don't know.

1:08:47Janne Parri: You can do whatever you want and have fun so that is cool that is when

1:08:50Félix Meens: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

1:08:52Janne Parri: You get to that point that is awesome

1:08:55Félix Meens: Also, you have like adult money now, so you know when before you might have been frustrated like a mom you know can you buy me and they're like no you have to wait for Christmas. You know now you're like well fuck it. I'll buy all these paints yeah

1:09:07Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, you can drop a couple hundred euros on a single Pokémon card if you want.

1:09:14Félix Meens: Yeah, if that's if that's your thing. Yeah. Yeah. And actually on that kind of subject, I do think there is interesting thing to like, look at what you did as a kid and what did you enjoy. And this is kind of like what I was thinking about also when I was on the verge of like going freelancing. And I was like trying to think like, you know, what are the things that I really liked doing and I've always liked something a little bit creative, but also a little bit technical, you know? And that's why Webflow, felt like this was the perfect fit for me, because there is creativity, there's design, animation, all that, but there's also the technical aspect, which is kind of building stuff, and knowing the software and all that. And that has always been there as a kid, so I can really look back and see like...

1:10:10Félix Meens: You know, it is the same like what I liked before I like it now also in even though it's in a different way and even painting the Warhammers is the same thing. There's the creativity, but it's not like I have a blank canvas and I'm like, okay, paint something, you know, like I'm not Picasso or like I need the restrictions. I need the technical kind of geeky aspect of like which paint to use, which technique to apply, you know, and which yeah, material and all that. So So I think yeah, you can learn a lot from thinking about what did you enjoy doing as a teenager or as a kid? And now that you're an adult, you know, just enjoy it, you know

1:10:49Janne Parri: Yeah, totally. But of course, at some point you have to move from thinking to doing, like actually try stuff. But circling back to the evolution of Webflow as a platform, I too want to do both of the things, like design and development. I'm not the best ⁓ designer, not the best developer, but I kind of like the challenge from the both. And that's probably the only thing that a little bit bothers me when Webflow is getting more technical. The clients that come to me are more and more coming to me for just the Webflow part,

1:11:32Félix Meens: Hmm.

1:11:33Janne Parri: Just the development. Which is nice. Those are good projects too. But I wonder, will there be a day that I just leave the design part just because of the client requests? Maybe. Of course, I can

1:11:48Félix Meens: Hmm.

1:11:48Janne Parri: Do things about that. It's in my control to some point. But I wonder, of course. Have you seen anything like that?

1:11:57Félix Meens: I don't know. Still feel like maybe it's the type of clients, but I still do. Let's say like 80 % is, you know, with design as well. Yeah. I do have some people reaching out just to help, you know, with development, but I still feel like there is a demand for design. So yeah, I don't know. I guess depends on the clients, depends what they have or so internally, if they have designers or but I don't think it happened that... Okay, I mean, it might have happened, you know, a couple of times, but most of the time it doesn't happen that they hire me for Webflow and then they hire another freelancer for design. Usually, you know, they want to do everything.

1:12:39Janne Parri: Yeah, usually in my case, if they hire me just for Webflow, they had designed the site in-house. So they have some sort of team that includes a designer. But yeah, of course, I'm

1:12:50Félix Meens: How do you find it when that happens?

1:12:54Janne Parri: Just fine. I'm like putting on my developer hats and not thinking too much about the design choices. Of course, I will not be a mindless robot. If there is something off with the design, I will point that out. Let's say if I'm accessible to this stuff or just the bad layouts or bad, even like content bad wording on a headline. I will always call that out because in the long run, it benefits the client. But yeah.

1:13:23Félix Meens: Okay. I'm asking that because I've noticed like for me when that happens, even though it's really rare. Yeah, I do sometimes notice like, okay, like, you know, it wasn't really like a web designer that design, you know, maybe they're more doing graphic design and social media, but then they now they've been put on, put on that project or they've been product designers and maybe they have more UX skills and UI skill. Like, yeah, I don't usually, I don't want to say like always, but you know, I feel like more often than not, it hasn't been the best fit. That's why I'm also like usually.

1:13:57Félix Meens: Advising like you know let us let us handle the design or then hire somebody that does you know? Web design like full-time

1:14:05Janne Parri: Yeah, that's definitely the case where the client has done some design. Let's say they have designed a mock-up of the first page. But then if I'm going to do just the development, will require all the pages, design for all the pages. There's a little bit of a filter. And many times the client has done some design and I'm... I'm like that. Basically, that is not enough. Let me decide the whole thing.

1:14:36Janne Parri: Of course, you have to be quite ruthless because then it gets messy if you kind of do and don't do the design.

1:14:45Félix Meens: Yeah, and you want to be proud of the work. So if you don't like the design that the client is providing, like that, you don't want to put it on your portfolio. So it comes back to like deciding who you want to work with and what projects to take on. And for me, then those are not usually the highest priority. If I see the design and it's subpar. So

1:15:04Janne Parri: Yeah, but that is kind of tough because the case that the client has done some work and maybe they are still doing the design and they want to do the design, but they want the development to start. There are like those edge cases where you kind of get that the client wants to move fast.

1:15:25Félix Meens: Hmm.

1:15:25Janne Parri: But then you are like, let's do this the proper way. Let's design the whole site and then jump to the development. And yeah, I'm not sure. Sometimes I'm not sure what to do with those requests. Am I just saying that? Yeah. Yeah. I should. I should.

1:15:43Félix Meens: Just say no. That doesn't work.

1:15:50Janne Parri: It really does not. I have been able to say no, just to be clear, but I usually try to somehow tell them that, okay, I need to design it or they need to design it like thoroughly so that I can do better work at the design phase.

1:16:12Félix Meens: I mean some people that are we gotta be agile, you know, like but it's like, okay I'm gonna start building that page and then you're gonna change it and then I have again I have to rebuild it basically. So how is that saving us any time? You know might as well just finish the page get it approved and then I build it, know, there's no point of like having circles and circles for the sake of being agile like you're just wasting time so this is different from, you know, product development.

1:16:42Janne Parri: Hopefully we will have an AI assistant that we can tell that explained this matter to the client in a polite way. Okay. I'm not sure if you have watched the previous episodes that I have made, but I have this new kind of funny section at the end of every episode.

1:17:06Félix Meens: No.

1:17:07Janne Parri: So.

1:17:08Félix Meens: But this is not a proper episode, this is just a quick chat, you know, this is our second time.

1:17:11Janne Parri: You are not getting out of out of this I will force you to go through with this. So yeah, the how this Section works. I will give you a Finnish saying or a idiom or a metaphor I will say it in Finnish and in a Translation in English and you have to guess what that means is that clear?

1:17:36Félix Meens: Okay that's okay yeah all right

1:17:38Janne Parri: So you have a of advantage here because you live in Finland. But if you get this right, you would be the first one to get it right.

1:17:48Félix Meens: I probably won't I mean I will tell you if I've heard it before so that it's fair you know but I probably don't

1:17:56Janne Parri: So the saying is in Finnish, and the literal translation is to show jay's eggs, and a jay is a type of a bird. Närhi is the word for the bird in Finnish. So you're basically showing some bird

1:18:15Félix Meens: Jesus.

1:18:16Janne Parri: X to someone.

1:18:18Félix Meens: What could that mean? Well, that sounds like some kind of rare... Rare item, so is it like... Is it like something like showing off or showing off your wealth or some shit like that? Like you have to say me like warm or cold and then can try again. Ah shit.

1:18:37Janne Parri: That's quite cold.

1:18:40Félix Meens: Could it be like... Because it's also like so... Kind of out of nowhere. Could it be like somehow like being completely off topic? You know, like you're showing me your bird eggs like not even like what nobody cares. Shit.

1:18:53Janne Parri: That's the saying for that, but it's not this one.

1:19:00Félix Meens: OK, I don't know. I don't know.

1:19:02Janne Parri: Okay, so to show chase eggs means basically to put in one's place or to teach a lesson. So if I show you chase eggs, I teach you a lesson or put you in your place.

1:19:18Félix Meens: I don't see the relation between the two, but...

1:19:20Janne Parri: That's probably... No relation.

1:19:24Félix Meens: How is that teaching me a lesson? Like... Okay... Wait...

1:19:27Janne Parri: I'm not sure I do not like invent this they just come from

1:19:32Félix Meens: But why? What's so special about Jay's eggs?

1:19:35Janne Parri: I'm not sure. I have no clue. It is just the way it is. It's

1:19:38Félix Meens: Yeah, it's just a saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:19:41Janne Parri: The quirkiness of Finnish language.

1:19:44Félix Meens: All right, all right, but that's yeah, that's fun. Let me know if we have a third episode then i'll bring you a french a french expression as well

1:19:53Janne Parri: Dear. But hey, there's one thing that we have not done in this episode. It's usually done at the start of the episode and it's the intros. So my name is Janne Parri. I am kind of the host of this episode. And with me is Felix. We are both of course Webflow certified partners and that's basically why we are so excited about all. All things Webflow. Yeah, Felix, tell of course where people can find you and if there's

1:20:25Janne Parri: Any closing remarks you wanna say, go ahead.

1:20:29Félix Meens: Yeah, well, yeah, I'll take that intro. I don't think I need to add anything else they can find me well, I do have a youtube channel, but i'm not you know, it's on and off. Sometimes i'm active. Sometimes i'm not maybe i'll get back into it. But yeah, most of the time you can find me on LinkedIn, Félix Meens I post weekly about some thoughts about Webflow design freelancing sharing my work. Yeah. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me again. I like this kind of like just, you know, talking shit format and just sharing what's up. I think this is the kind of podcast I enjoy listening to as well when there's not necessarily like, you know, a topic is just like chatting, sharing how the business is doing, what we've learned and all that. So.

1:21:18Félix Meens: Hopefully other people are enjoying it too.

1:21:22Janne Parri: Yeah, that's it and that's all. See ya.